Total War: Three Kingdoms Releases Final Patch 1.7.1, Gets Review Bombed On Steam

Total War: Three Kingdoms‘ newest patch 1.7.1 will also be its last, after Creative Assembly announced that it would be winding down production in favor of a new Three Kingdoms game. While the patch is expansive and contains many of the fixes previously promised by the developers, some promised content was never added to the 2019 game, leading fans to review bomb Three Kingdoms on Steam.

The game’s Steam page now shows an overwhelmingly negative rating for recent reviews, while its overall reviews are still sitting at mostly positive. Negative reviewers stated that they felt betrayed by the developers, citing a promised northern region expansion that never materialized, and complaining that the game never actually explored the Three Kingdoms it’s named for.

The developers’ announcement said that the team had wrapped up the story intended to be told in Total War: Three Kingdoms, and that further parts of the historic story would be told in separate games under the Three Kingdoms banner, with the next installment already in development.

The final patch includes some changes that were promised by developers, such as moving Mount Song and Hulao pass to the right location, but is lacking in the broader map expansion that the Mount Song relocation was meant to accompany. The patch notes also include a large number of bug fixes.

Total War: Three Kingdoms Patch 1.7.1

MAP CHANGES

  • Moved Mount Song and Hulao pass to their correct location
  • Added more impassable areas to the Yellow River to prevent moving past some passes

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

  • Reduced frequency of AI picking Faction Council missions that spawn Looters
  • On restoring the Han your factions name will change to the Han Empire and your flag will change to the Han Empire
  • Removed Imperial Favour gain from positive public order, and adjusted some food-based gains
  • Xiangyang is now owned by Liu Biao in 200
  • Friend relationships added between Mi Zhu, Sun Qian and Liu Bei in 200, and family relationships between Lady Mi and Mi Zhu and Mi Fang
  • Zhou Tai’s now heals 0.2% of max HP every second, 5 times slower than before, and can no longer use his heal when on an elephant
  • Governors can now restore the Han (or declare independence) if they control the emperor when they hit the maximum prestige level
  • Fixed two desync errors with Cao Cao in co-op and at the 190 start date.
  • Fixed starting the game with Chinese IME leading to losing control of keyboard and mouse in-game in certain versions of Windows 10.

CAMPAIGN FIXES

  • Fixed crash when annexing Yellow Turban settlements as the Han
  • Fixed crash when extracting a spy when they’re leading an army
  • Fixed crash related to annexing settlements and amount of action points remaining to the army annexing
  • Fixed crash that could happen upon zooming in on a besieged settlement
  • Yellow Turban Rebellion can no longer be invited to join Empires
  • Postponed the ‘Restore the Han’ dilemma until Emperor Xian is an adult to make sure he could not become faction leader when still a child
  • Removed duplicate Black Mountain Hideout buildings in the 194 campaign
  • Fixed issue where if a faction in an alliance left it, alliance peace would be automatically signed but one faction would remain in an alliance war and be unable to leave it
  • Fixed issue where the Trade Territory function was not always working correctly
  • Fixed issue where it was possible to annex territory of a faction who had left your Empire
  • Fixed issue where nothing happened if you attacked a vassal of a member of your Empire, the correct diplomacy pop-ups now occur
  • Fixed issue where player would get two pop-up messages if the target of a mercenary contract is vassalised by the faction issuing the contract
  • If a faction which is fulfilling a mercenary contract is vassalised the contract now ends and the mission will expire the following turn
  • Fixed issue where vassals did not always have access to the option to request permission to declare war from their vassal master
  • Nanman rebels can now no longer do any diplomatic treaties beyond war, this will only apply to new campaigns
  • Vassalising a Nanman faction through settlement occupation option as a Nanman faction will now correctly sign peace with that faction
  • Fixed issue where Nanman diplomatic options with Han factions were not always working correctly
  • Fixed issue where Demand Fealty for Nanman wasn’t correctly unlocking the option to vassalize Han factions
  • Fixed issue where Yellow Turban factions were sometimes not progressing and therefore not gaining access to more diplomatic treaties
  • Fixed issue where Dong Zhuo incorrectly had access to Liu Hong’s specific diplomatic option to annex empire subjects
  • Fixed issue where Yu Jin leaves Cao Cao on turn 1 of a legendary 194 campaign
  • Moved Emperor Xian’s pin in the 200 campaign to Xuchang to match his location
  • Liang Rebels in Mandate of Heaven are no longer affected by Imperial Favour
  • Han Empire and factions like Liu Hong led by a current/former Emperor now get a boost to Imperial Favour
  • Northern Army veteran units now have unit caps to be consistent with the basic Northern army units
  • Fixed many instances of characters appearing in the 200 campaign who should already be dead
  • Fixed issue where Liu Xie with his unique art could be born to any character
  • Xun You can now correctly access all skills in his tree, which enables him to gain access to his Turning the Tide ability
  • Updated text for Lu Bu’s Personal Victories and Momentum to reflect the fact that he gains both from defeating enemy generals in battles, not from duels, as many AI generals are reluctant to duel him
  • Fixed issue where the Qiao sisters event was not triggering for Sun Ce
  • Fixed issue where if the Emperor is executed by a non-Han faction a duplicate Liu Xie could spawn
  • Fixed issue where the ‘Iron General’ title was not unlocking correctly
  • Fixed issue where when Nanman children are born they would ‘steal’ one weapon and one mount from the factions available pools
  • Shanyue in 200 were set to Bandit culture but Han military group, their military group now matches their culture which will enable them to recruit more units
  • Fixed issue where when playing as Dong Zhuo in Mandate of Heaven Lu Bu did not always join the player due to an error in the related events
  • Corrected unlock conditions for Liu Chong trophy that required 15 spear infantry units but only tested for pike infantry
  • Fixed issue where Rice Paddies were not providing food production from farming as Bandits
  • Fixed issue where increase in spy slots was not applying unless campaign is saved and reloaded
  • Fixed issue where Imperial units were not being unlocked correctly by technologies in the Eight Princes campaign
  • Fixed issue where Liu Yan/Liu Zhang’s tier 6 settlements were wrongly giving a faction-wide bonus of +50% to commerce income

BATTLE FIXES

  • Fixed issue where several settlement maps were covered in the caltrops ground type
  • Fixed issue where Yu Jin had different abilities in custom battle to campaign
  • Fixed issue where several characters unrelated to Yuan Shao had the ‘Familial Conflict’ ability, and added it to Yuan Shu
  • Fixed issue where faces of Nanman units could appear black at certain angles/lighting

UI FIXES

  • Fixed issue where some already researched techs in the Nanman tech tree were not being displayed correctly
  • Fixed issue where player would get notifications and pop-ups about Imperial Intrigue before the feature was active
  • Fixed issue where first notification for a turn does not always pop-up
  • Fixed issue where more than 11 administrator positions did not fit into the court UI, a scroll bar has been added
  • Fixed issue where the ‘King of Kings’ UI for Meng Huo was not updating with the correct duration
  • Fixed issue where some character names were shown in lower case when loading into battles
  • Fixed issue where the ‘Discredit Faction’ was sometimes available in circumstances that weren’t valid
  • Removed outdated information on the Info Overlay for Cao Cao and Yuan Shao
  • Fixed issue where the Abdicate Emperorship diplomatic proposal had wrong description, it wrongly suggested the faction being proposed to would abdicate, instead of the one proposing the deal

ASSEMBLY KIT

  • Fixed issue where startpos processing was not being done correctly

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Fortnite Season 6 Week 12 Challenges

Fortnite Week 12 is nearly here which means the Week 12 challenges are also just around the corner. Week 12, the final week of Season 6, is set to go live on Thursday, June 3 at 7 AM PT / 10 AM ET. With it will come another full slate of Epic Quests and Legendary Quests for players to chase. As usual, they’ve leaked ahead of time. If you still need to hit Battle Pass tier 100–or 220 for the enlightened skins–these challenges will provide massive XP boosts to get you across the finish line. Here’s the full list of Week 12 challenges.

Fortnite Week 12 Challenges

Epic Quests

  • Visit the Zero Point (1) – 24,000 XP
  • Craft pistols (3) – 24,000 XP
  • Defeat a spire guardian (1) – 24,000 XP
  • Hunt predators (3) – 24,000 XP
  • Tame boars outside of Colossal Crops (1) – 24,000 XP
  • Chicken Glide at Colossal Crops (1) – 24,000 XP
  • Raid an artifact from Stealthy Stronghold and from Coral Castle (2) – 24,000 XP

Legendary Quests

  • Spend Gold Bars (150) – 35,000 XP
  • Spend Gold Bars (300) – 24,000 XP
  • Spend Gold Bars (450) – 24,000 XP
  • Spend Gold Bars (600) – 24,000 XP
  • Spend Gold Bars (750) – 24,000 XP
Spend your Gold Bars before the end of the season. They don't carry over!
Spend your Gold Bars before the end of the season. They don’t carry over!

The Legendary Quest seems easy, as 750 Gold Bars is the price of roughly any two Mythic weapons, like the Marksman Six Shooter or the Grappler Bow. It should be even easier this week since the final Wild Weeks event of Season 6 is rumored to make collecting bars even faster. If you’re looking to visit the Zero Point, it’s the glowing metal orb at the top of The Spire, located in the very center of the map. You may recall The Foundation is currently trapped inside.

Crafting pistols is something you’ve been doing all season, most likely, but follow our weapon crafting guide if you’re stuck. The Spire Guardians are located at any of the six mini-spires. One resides at each of the extremities of the orange parts of the map. They put up a good fight, so be careful and maybe bring a friend or three. Hunting predators (wolves and raptors), taming boar, and performing a chicken glide are all neatly addressed in our Fortnite Season 6 animal guide.

As for raiding artifacts, these items won’t show up until the moment the quest goes live, but should they leak in the meantime, we’ll jump on a guide even sooner than that morning, so check back soon for your full Week 12 challenges roadmap.

This is the final week of Season 6. On June 8, Fortnite Season 7 kicks off with what appears to be an alien-themed season, as evidenced by the recent They’re Coming ARG and the Foreshadowing Quests. Get in there and finish up your final few challenges before the alien spaceships touch down on the island.

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Need For Speed Carbon, Shift, And More Getting Delisted From Digital Storefronts

Several older Need for Speed games will be removed from digital stores and have their in-game economies shuttered starting May 31, publisher EA announced. Online services for these games will cease operations in August.

Carbon, Shift, Shift 2: Unleashed, The Run, and Undercover are the Need for Speed games that are being prepared for retirement. All five games will no longer be purchasable from digital storefronts and players can’t participate in their in-game economies to buy things like car parts and currencies. Online services such as leaderboards and matchmaking will stay active until August 31, at which point all five games will be relegated to strictly offline play.

Community manager Max Myrus took to the Need for Speed subreddit to deliver the news, explaining why retirement for these games has come.

“Decisions to retire games are never made easy, but we are now shifting gears to focus on the future of Need for Speed,” Max said. “The development teams and operational staff have put a lot of time and passion into the development, creation, release and upkeep of the game over the years, and we love to see you play. But the number of players has come to a point where it’s no longer feasible to continue the work behind the scenes required to keep Need for Speed Carbon, Need for Speed Undercover, Need for Speed Shift, Need for Speed Shift 2: Unleashed and Need for Speed The Run up and running.”

This news isn’t too surprising considering the age of these games, with the oldest on the list being Need for Speed: Carbon (2006) and the youngest being Need for Speed: The Run (2011). EA has published six other Need for Speed games since The Run; the latest was 2019’s Need for Speed Heat.

Various Need for Speed games are on EA’s subscription service EA Play, including Heat, Payback, and Rivals. The publisher will host an all-virtual EA Play Live on July 22. Though it’s unclear if a new Need for Speed will surface, fans might get information about Battlefield 6 and Dragon Age 4.